What the…? Tech stories that made us do a double take

These WTF stories made us laugh, made us cry, made us facepalm.

Oh, what 12 months can bring. We're all wiser and better-looking now, but we can't say 2012 was all serious business. They say that truth is stranger than fiction, and here are some stories that prove that old saw correct.

Virtual locker insanity and the long HP train wreck

The continuing saga of Kim Dotcom is a WTF story for the ages.

Photo illustration by Aurich Lawson (After Pen & Pixel)

It's hard to imagine a crazier story than the continuing saga of Kim Dotcom and Megaupload. The action-movie-gone-wrong raid on his leased mansion and the inflatable tank that showed up in his yard afterward were just the warm-up. Since then, the Megaupload case has created public embarrassment for the New Zealand and US governments—and a larger platform for the antics of Dotcom, some of which border on performance art.

Meanwhile, the case against Dotcom has become increasingly troubled thanks to revelations that New Zealand's government illegally spied on Dotcom and that the raid on his mansion was also illegal because the warrants were invalid. The case is costing the small island nation more than any other legal case in its history. And, in the US, the Department of Justice is still refusing to give Megaupload users access to their legitimate content. The Megaupload saga could continue to provide schadenfreude and just plain strangeness well into 2013.

Speaking of continuing stories, the saga of Hewlett-Packard's descent into corporate hell has been a reliable source of schadenfreude and strangeness for years. With CEO Meg Whitman at the helm, things haven't been as scandalous or preposterous as they were under her predecessors. But while the ship of fools in HP management may be steering away from totally running aground, it's clear that the company's keel is already bent.

Enlarge/ There may be a new engineer at HP, but the crazy train has already run off the rails.

In October, Whitman gave a presentation to analysts that tried to air all of the company's bad news in one sitting, admitting the company's "significant execution miscues" over the past few years and plotting a course for restructuring by 2016. But a month later, when the company announced its quarterly and annual financial results, HP's management also announced an $8 billion accounting write-off when they discovered in an audit that former CEO Leo Apotheker had paid too much for the software firm Autonomy—at least $5 billion too much. HP then accused former Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch and his team of fraudulently inflating the value of their company by cooking the books a bit.

Meanwhile, HP is still embroiled in a lawsuit with Oracle over the database vendor's decision to drop software support for HP's Itanium platform in future releases; a court found that Oracle had breached a contract, but the case still has to move forward to a damages phase. It's a Pyrrhic victory in many ways for HP, as nearly everyone else in the software industry has jumped ship on Itanium support already. And a significant amount of HP's dirty laundry got aired by Oracle during discovery.~Sean Gallagher

Scrubbing the Internet clean

From comment trolls to ethically-challenged hackers to bona fide terrorists, everyone uses the Internet, Gangnam Style remixes and all. Because there’s no one central authority online, the Internet remains a mish-mash of all that is good and evil in the world. Sure, a few less savory sites may get shut down, but most of the time, they survive. Coming up with a proportional, fair, and free speech-protecting way of addressing controversial or illegal online websites remains a hugely difficult project.

That’s why it was awfully surprising to us when we caught wind earlier this year of a publicly-funded European Union project to create a fantastically vague “guideline or gentleman’s agreement” that would “counter the illegal use of [the] Internet” by terrorists. How would that work? No one knew.

If CleanIT's proposals are carried out, it's likely that sites like this—currently hosted in Hungary—would be targeted.

As we reported back in August 2012, “CleanIT” received a €400,000 ($428,000) grant from the Prevention of and Fight against Crime Programme of the European Commission to study the creation of a system that would flag (and presumably ban) “terrorist” websites hosted in the EU. Besides the fact that this project would do nothing to actually remove baddies’ sites outside the EU, the entire scheme raised a number of questions, notably, "What is a terrorist website, anyway?" and "Will judges be involved?" A leaked document in September 2012 showed a number of eyebrow-raising proposals including ones like "governments must disseminate lists of illegal, terrorist websites" and "Internet companies must allow only real, common names" and "at the European level, a browser or operating system-based reporting button must be developed."

Despite our critiques of this project, however, CleanIT and its EU money have invited yours truly to moderate a panel during the group's last conference in Brussels in late January 2013, when the entire project is schedule to wrap up. We’ll be pleased to bring you that story early next year. ~Cyrus Farivar

A very merry un-retirement

Apple engineering head Bob Mansfield's un-retirement was a perplexing event in the Apple world this year.

When Apple's famous engineering head Bob Mansfield announced his retirement in June of this year, Apple-watchers were both surprised and saddened. Mansfield's influence on the engineering team for the last 13 years has been significant, and he's well-known as a great leader to work with at Apple. That's why, when Apple announced two months later that Mansfield was actually staying on board, the head scratching began.

The company never outwardly explained the reason for Mansfield's reversal, but when iOS software head Scott Forstall was shown the door a couple of months later, insiders claimed that Mansfield reversed his decision because of Forstall's exit from Apple. Or at least that was part of the reason; Mansfield was reportedly very serious about his retirement, but Apple may have made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Still, the clincher was apparently Forstall—the two managers' styles clashed when it came to "discussing" software and hardware strategy. "It wasn’t a him-or-me situation," one source told AllThingsD. "But, put it this way, I think Bob was much more willing to commit to two more years once he knew Scott was on his way out." ~Jacqui Cheng

Filtered food for $1 billion

Instagram

Instagram users were blindsided in April when the service announced that Facebook would acquire it, and for no less than one billion dollars. The collective wail from Instagram users was swift. Instagram’s roots are with the hipsters who want nothing more than to share grainy, filtered pictures of craft beer and Bon Iver concerts with their followers—but when Facebook swept in with all those zeroes, Instagram’s staff and founders could hardly be expected to turn the offer down.

Facebook has largely kept Instagram at arm’s length, and Instagram has continued to develop, releasing Web profiles and a new filter. But despite Zuckerberg’s promises that he would maintain Instagram’s relations with Twitter, Twitter recently booted Instagram out the door from its onsite galleries, restricting Instagram photo-viewing to external links only.

Then, just this month, Instagram released new Terms of Service that brought full circle some of the fears its loyal users have held since the acquisition was announced. Among the choice clauses, some of which were later reversed: “To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.” Welcome to Facebook Sponsored Stories—we mean, Instagram ads. Population: you and your pictures.

~Casey Johnston

1. Destroy fresco, 2. ???, 3. Profit

Ars covers a lot of copyright and royalties issues concerning digital media, but the story of Cecilia Giménez, 80-something restorer of the Ecce Homo fresco in the Santuario de Misericordia Church in Borja, Spain, induced many a "WTF?" reaction among our staff. Giménez, who inexpertly tried to restore the painting, botched the job and ended up with a monkey-like Jesus image that quickly became an Internet meme.

But the truly amazing part was that months after Giménez had gained unwanted notoriety from 4chan and Reddit and then the world, the elderly woman and her family hired lawyers to secure royalties from the church, which had been making lemons out of lemonade by charging meme tourists money to see the fresco. Everyone's out to make a buck, even the little old lady from the church whose centuries-old painting she destroyed.

I'm not sure what's so WTF about not holding a Blizzcon this year.Blizzcon has generally been where Blizzard makes large announcements or shows off upcoming releases.

This year, they had two major releases (Diablo 3 and World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria) bracketing the summer months. They had no major announcements and their upcoming releases (MoP and Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm) were already in beta.

Considering they operate Blizzcon at a loss as a publicity vehicle, I'm honestly surprised they hold them annually.

Enfour isn't done—the company said it is working on newer and better ways to identify and shame pirates. Let's hope for the sake of the company's paying customers that the system actually works next time.

It never will be perfect, expect many of these follies to come. I think that Enfour just earned a prominent entry on the Do-Not-Buy list until it recants.

I both love and loathe the internet for its ability to bring any and all things into the public light. These are true gems.

The Kim Dotcom saga itself may not be art, but his role in orchestrating it is. But on the scale of WTF McAfee has it beat though for just his sheer borderline paranoia coming to fruition and him escaping back to US.

The change in the Instagram terms of service points out real issues with using social media and other online services like iTunes. I have to wonder how many people actually read AND UNDERSTAND the TOS they are agreeing to with the click of a button. Then the TOS changes and I wonder how many people read AND UNDERSTAND the revised TOS... or do they just click the button.

At least we have sites like Ars and others to get the words out about dramatic and draconian TOS changes like the Instagram fiasco and the public can mount pressure and the blow back can make the company back down. But what about the other "hidden GEMs" in the TOS millions and hundreds of millions have signed? This is an area that may need further exploration.

But if "My hardware failed" was seriously the most "WTF" problem that Kyle could come up with... he should get out more. There's a certain point where one needs to say "put some vasoline on it, and get over it."

Regarding the Ecce Homo fresco revision and the revenue stream made off of tourists; was the revenue tax exempt or did the church have to pay taxes on it?

Here in the US congress may take up tax reform. Should the tax exemption for churches be phased out as part of tax reforms?

Churches (in Western nations like Spain) don't generally pay tax on "revenue" since they are not seen as revenues per se but rather donations to charity. Charities don't usually pay taxes on "revenue" (aka donations) whether they're a religious (e.g. churches) or other kind of charity (e.g. red cross). The employees pay taxes on their own property and wages, though.

However, last year the city of Zamora in Spain started charging the Catholic church property tax.